On 25 Jun 2006 10:50:54 -0700, wrote:

Depending on which washer was purchased, the error code information
might be in the technical information either inside the control panel,
or in a plastic sleeve inside the machine.

This reminds me of when I bought a PCJr, about 1984. This is before
the first PC, iirc, but not much before. It came in a package with an
IBM Graphics Printer (an impact printer), and I wanted to know what
values made the printer did what. A couple weeks after I got the
printer, I called the IBM office here and whoever answered said I
could come in anytime to their PC sales office, right in the heart of
downtown Baltimore, and copy the info out of I forget the name but
some big manual they had. So I left work a little early to give
myself an hour to copy. When I got there someone got the book for me
and I was copying, and after a while someone came over and said I
didn't have to copy, he would Xerox it for me. So he took it and was
gone for a while and came back saying they wouldn't let him do it.

Because he was gone 5 or 10 minutes I didn't have enough time to copy
everything I wanted, and anyone I wanted to talk to the boss, who told
me it was "copyrighted material". I pointed out that IBM owned the
copyright and could give anyone they wanted to a copy. No budge so I
rushed to get down as much as possible, and left when they closed.


A couple weeks after that, I went throught the stuff that came with
the printer again. There had been two owners manuals, each wrapped in
thick cellophane or whatever, and the instructions said that if I
bought the thing after a date (and I bought it months after that
date), I should throw away one of them. I'm too smart to do that, but
I hadn't unwrapped it yet. When I did, I realized it was a lot longer
than the other, and the extra pages were just what I was trying to
copy at the IBM office. I couldn't find any other differences in the
manual.

So they used to give this info out for free, info one might need if he
were writing his own printer driver and for some other reasons, and
now they didn't have the energy to go into the printer cartons to
remove the manual, but they were trying to get me to throw the info
away. It seems.

In the last 4 or 5 years, much info that used to appear on US
Government webpages for years, has not only been removed from the
webpages but marked "classified". There seems some similarity.

You could request to see the
owner's manual before making a purchase, but I bet that few salespeople
would have the ability or willingness to fulfill that request.

One of the stereo chains in Baltimore, Luskins, I think, kept the
owners manual for most of its items for sale underneath the item on
its sales display, VCR's, Receivers, and I don't what else, and they
probably still do.

There are so many features on these things. They are certainly not all
listed on the box, and even those that are can't be appreciated
without knowing more details. Upshot, I ended up spending 500 dollars
on a Kenwood in 1984 without knowing all the features or understanding
them, but I really liked the machine, and later when I used cheaper
machines, I found out that mine was really great!